


Our Love on Display

by queen_insane



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Literal murder as art, M/M, Murder Husbands, Overuse of metaphors through art, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-25
Updated: 2017-08-25
Packaged: 2018-12-19 20:29:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,570
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11905626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/queen_insane/pseuds/queen_insane
Summary: Jack follows a trail of three murders around the world in an attempt to understand just what went wrong after the infamous cliff dive.





	Our Love on Display

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a little while since I've posted this paring (a few months) but not nearly as long as last time thankfully.

The first one is found in a small Cuban manor one year after Will and Hannibal disappeared from the known world. It takes Jack one day to fly out, and when he pulls into the beach side home just a moment to understand with perfect clarity who committed the crime. The house is old, but not so old as to be in disrepair. Instead the flaking yellow paint adds an simple charm to the house that cannot be denied. Inside the floors are marble, and art hangs on the walls. But the art is not renaissance works, but local. Bright colors tell the stories of urban life. Men playing guitars, woman at market, boats floating at sea. A dog bowl lays half empty in the kitchen.

Everything about the house screams domesticity and it makes Jack’s heart ache. This is what his quest against the Tooth Fairy has lead to. He has surrendered Will to the devil.

It is almost as if Jack had pushed Will off the cliff himself.

He walks upstairs into the sitting room, where they had found the body. It is bent backward over the edge of the desk, head down. There are small round clocks in the eyes, bent and staring forward at whomever enters the room. The body has been stripped of almost all clothing and colored in intricate gold patterns. The chest has been gutted and then resown from belly to sternum where it takes the shape of an arrow. A bright orange plate lays near the body on the left side, where the removed organs lay. An offering. The only thing that is off is the small bonsai tree on the right side of the body. Where another clock is bent over on the delicate branches.

If it wasn’t so awful Jack would swear it was a work of art.

He wonders how long Hannibal and Will worked on it. How long it took them to painstakingly draw the golden patterns on the body. It is clearly them - he cannot deny it. Not because the display reminds him of something Hannibal would do - but because of the house it is found in. He wishes knowing who killed this man would matter.

It doesn’t.

Hannibal and Will have left this house and most likely Cuba as well. There is nothing to see here other than the knowledge that he has failed Will. A smarter man might understand the meaning of the melting clocks, of time broken and ever shifting, of drawings done under the stress of a brain aflame. Jack is not a smarter man.

He doesn’t have to be.

\----

The next body is found in a Japanese hotel. It has only been three weeks after the first, but Jack knows this pattern. Knows that the Ripper kills in threes. A return to this style of killing after so long seems strange, but Jack can see it for what it is - a farewell, a goodbye tour to the world. Will’s influence on Hannibal is far reaching. They may not stop killing but the displays - those will stop. The patterns will stop. No way to trace them after this. The trail will run cold.

Jack doesn’t really want to see this body but he feels that he owes it to Will to see it. To himself. A grim reminder of what happens when he pushes to hard.

As he stands in the elevator Jack wonders how Will and Hannibal were able to travel to Japan so quickly. The only explanation he can manage is that they must know someone, or have a contact that has been able to fly under the radar of everyone. He wonders what sort of person that could be. What sort of person would care for a monster like Hannibal, without Hannibal’s normal manipulation. He imagines they must have silver in their veins and iron in their bones.

The elevator dings.

Inside the hotel room a body lays on a bed seductively, back to the entryway. However the body has been twisted so that the head looks over the shoulder at the person entering. Daring the occupant to come into the room, to lay with them and be laid with in return. The bed has been moved so that the large window acts as a frame for the whole thing. Jack has been told that the curtains were replaced. Normally a drab and boring beige, the curtains behind this woman are a deep cobalt blue. She lays on bed sheets of the same color, but one lone white sheet lays under her - bunched up in such a way that it looks oddly delicate. A mark of purity. Her hand, draped over the back of her thigh holds a Japanese fan.

But the body here is dead. And the seduction it offers is a lie. A facade for something greater. Jack hesitates but then steps forward rounding on the other side of the bed. He is not surprised by the sight that greets him. Across her belly is a copy of the scar that Hannibal gave Will what feels like ages ago. It is the only sign that she has been killed. The rest of her body is clear of all wounds. The whole thing is oddly peaceful.

Staring at her from this angle Jack realizes that he is being told a story. The clocks he still does not understand but this storytelling is clear, and the person telling the story is not Hannibal. No - while the kills remind Jack of Hannibal, the storyteller is clearly Will. This death stands testament to the moment of his betrayal.

Jack wonders terribly at what the next story will bring, and knows that he will not have to wait long.

\----

It is only when he sees the bodies in Florence Italy three weeks later that he realizes the first two were a warm up. A way to prepare him for this next tableau. The bodies are found in a small chapel off the beaten path, and down a narrow and twisting alley. What no one, staring at them seems to realize is how close they are to the Uffizi, merely a ten minute walk away. This is intentional he knows. Will and Hannibal could never go back to the Uffizi, could never go back to the places they loved in Florence for fear of being caught - but this beautiful church, hidden away from prying eyes is perfect for their last staging.

Unlike the other two works where the figures had been sitting up, these bodies lay on the floor - a large frame of wood surrounding them like any classical work of art. The background is made of two bits of cloth. One dark blue, to signify the sea - and the other light blue, to signify the sky. On the edges of the cloth two figures reach for the body in the middle of the frame. One on the right holds a pale pink cloth as if to cover the body in the middle, while the other on the left leans forward propelled by wings made of black feathers.

But it is the figure in the middle that is most striking. His resemblance to Will is uncanny. If Jack did not know that it was Will who was providing the forward thrust for these kills he would have almost assumed the person was Will. From the curled hair, to the soft eyes. Even knowing what Will has become, Jack is thankful it’s not. This figure is naked, and mirrors other things Jack knows about Will. The scar on his belly. The scar Will had gotten when Jack had shot him. He stands on a bed of broken tea cups, shattered and reformed with gold solder into half a shell. The Not-Will's arms are draped on the body, one hand covers the apex of his thighs and the other hand lays on his heart.

The message like the murder before it, is clear - this is Will - reborn from the sea. Beautiful and triumphant. A declaration of intent made in the style of art that Hannibal loves the most. A joining of two forces, two minds. It is impossible to read it in any other way.

Jack sighs and takes a sip of his coffee. Perhaps now he can rest he thinks.

\----

So the chase ends. And as Will and Hannibal move from country to country, city to city - they continue to amass pieces of art. They rebuild their Cuban art collection, fall in love with prints from Japan, surround themselves with classical paintings and statues from Italy. They collect them and collect them until they arrive in the English countryside. But that doesn’t stop their acquisition. They dedicate one room to all the art they have gathered. They fill it up until the walls start to disappear.

There is never any killing in that room, it’s too precious and sacred. A growing temple to the story of them.

One day Will wakes and walks naked into the room, a cup of coffee in hand. A few minutes later Hannibal joins him. Wrapping his arms around Will’s body they stare into the room and realize that it’s complete. To add anything more would be to defile it, “It’s beautiful.” Will says.

“As many things between us are.” Hannibal murmurs into Will’s ear before pressing a kiss into Will’s shoulder.

Will cannot find it in himself to disagree.

**Author's Note:**

> The three paintings referenced in this story are: The Persistence of Memory by Salvador Dali, La Grande Odalisque by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, and The Birth of Venus by Sandro Botticelli. They are also some of my favorite paintings of all time. 
> 
> This story was mostly inspired by the last one (The Birth of Venus and the idea of being reborn from the sea), and took off from there.


End file.
